IT is easy to understand why some restive parents at Miriam College in Quezon City have reportedly been spreading a “boycott” letter in a bid to pressure school management to totally suspend classes. This is given 17 confirmed cases to date of the A(H1N1) flu virus at the high school.

These parents obviously cannot help but worry and fear for the safety of their children while they are in school, as the flu virus seemingly continues to spread. And any right-minded parent will rather err on the side of caution than risk the health of his or her young.

Despite the flu spread, school management had reportedly opted to suspend only sections with confirmed cases, rather than do what several other exclusive schools did in unilaterally suspending classes for a week to 10 days every time a confirmed case was reported.

“Suspending some sections alone are not sufficient measures,” the boycott letter reportedly read. “A majority of the Miriam population is already making an appeal for the government to intervene to compel Miriam authorities to suspend all classes because of the health risks,” it added.

It remains uncertain how the government will deal with this issue, or if it should even step in on behalf of the restive parents, or simply leave the matter to be resolved by the parents and Miriam school management through frank and candid dialogue.

Was it in late May or early June that the Commission on Higher Education moved the school opening for universities and colleges because of the flu scare? On hindsight, that didn’t seem to have much effect to stem the flu spread, with more cases being reported after schools opened.

Seemingly, class suspension doesn’t do much by way of mitigating flu spread or protecting students. After all, a flu virus, especially during the rainy season, will usually run its course no matter what. Perhaps unilateral suspension is a bit of an over-reaction, if not simply an attempt to minimize school-management liability, particularly in private schools.

In the case of public schools, Edu-cation Secretary Jesli Lapus and Secretary Francisco Duque III earlier stood their ground. Classes started as scheduled on June 1 despite the flu threat. On hindsight, it seems to have been the wiser decision. In the end, it was a choice between missing school and uncertainty that one might just catch the virus.

Lapus’s and Duque’s tough call wasn’t at all haphazard since it also involved parental discretion in terms of self-quarantine, which is perhaps the more practical alternative to unilaterally suspending classes. This is more so in the case of the Department of Education, with more than 22 million students under its care.

In addition, Lapus and Duque have also put together a response-level system in public schools similar to that used in typhoon warnings, and information on this is supposed to be posted on public-school billboards nationwide. In this line, school administrators have actually been empowered to suspend classes as they deemed fit.

The same response system applies to heavy rains and typhoons, or cases of flooding. Class suspension is automatic, depending on the storm signal. But if there are no storm signals, then the decision on suspension of classes is left with the local government and, of course, the parents themselves. This is a clear example of empowerment.

Duque had even noted that considering the flu virus’s fatality rate, illnesses like dengue fever should be feared more. Dengue has reportedly claimed 62 lives in the Philippines from January to May, as opposed to one woman who died from cardiac arrest while afflicted with the A(H1N1) flu virus. The virus didn’t even cause her death.

For his part, Health Undersecretary Mario Villaverde had noted that it was not wise to recommend for classes to be suspended every time a school would confirm a case of A(H1N1). For the first case or the index case, a school can suspend classes. But for the succeeding cases, affected students can just be sent home to observe a 10-day quarantine period, he added.

It is easy for parents, like those in Miriam College, to blame school management or to turn to government agencies for intervention and decision-making when it comes to cases of flu viruses, or even typhoons. But children have been going to formal schools since time immemorial, and viruses and typhoons have been badgering the local school season for just as long. And in the past, it was almost always up to parents to decide how to deal with the situation.

In the end, it’s all about being sensible. Knowing full well what a child will have to contend with in terms of viruses and bad weather as he goes to school, then precaution starts with parents themselves first assessing the situation and then deciding on their own whether to risk putting their child in harm’s way.

As the primary caregivers and providers, parents are still in the best position to decide what’s good for their own children, not the schools, and definitely not the government.